cadet blogs

I can’t say that I have too much to report on leadership - or Coast Guard-wise. We finished our AToN work and then made the transit back to home port. Time passed quickly, nothing out of the ordinary from last week, and now here I am, writing from GUAM! It’s crazy to think that I’m here and to look back on where I’ve been so far this summer. What incredible opportunities!

Although we have three weeks left aboard Sequoia, we will not be underway any more. To me, it feels like a journey has come to a conclusion. Guam, it seems, has been my destination for the summer, and I’ve finally made it. This is the home stretch. Time to finish up our qualifications, start passing on the collateral duties I’ve assumed, and to explore the area—who knows when I’ll get the chance to visit Guam again.

While we were making our trip back, I thought it would be fun to do some calculations and comparisons to help wrap my mind around how far we had come—that was one thing that hit me this week—how BIG the world is! That is certainly something you can’t really feel until you cross over more than 2/3 of the Pacific Ocean in a 225’ cutter.

From Oahu to Kwajalein to Apra Harbor, Guam, Sequoia traveled approximately 3,536 nautical miles (4,069 statutory miles). Sequoia is approximately 0.037 NM (1 NM ≈ 6,076 feet). That means that we traveled a distance equivalent to approximately 95,488.88 the ship’s length. Now, that doesn’t help much in picturing how far that is, especially if you haven’t seen or been on a 225’ cutter.

Let’s think of the distance we traveled compared to the length of a football field. The length of Sequoia would be equivalent to a length of 0.038 inches (maybe it’s easier to measure in millimeters: 0.96 mm, not even one full millimeter!) Whoa! And the ship seems so large to me. How small we must be!

Let’s take Guam as another example. It’s smaller than Oahu, but larger than Kwajalein Island. Its area is approximately 549 km squared. Compare that to the earth’s surface area: 5.1 x 108 km squared. Again, hard to picture that scale, even if you have a globe in front of you. Let’s go with the football field again. On a football field, Guam’s relative size would be 8.9 inches squared, which is a square with 2.988-inch sides. It’s pretty cool to me to think how far I’ve gone this summer! And yet the expanse of the Pacific Ocean is so hard to wrap my head around. It’s a great reminder that (and here comes the cliché…but it’s very applicable here) we often get focused on the immediate things in front of us—standing watch, completing projects, sleeping and waking, eating meals, but there is such a huge world out there. I’m so fortunate to get to experience these more remote parts of it!

It may be a summer of work and little rest, but it’s giving me the perspective and refreshing that I need to complete my last year at the Academy. I’m looking forward to going back and in a little less than one year joining the operation Coast Guard as an officer. Woohoo! Let’s go!